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I felt it was pretty probable that in his head, he was thinking "bitcoin style cryptography", which makes his claims much more technically accurate (even if the

I felt it was pretty probable that in his head, he was thinking "bitcoin style cryptography", which makes his claims much more technically accurate (even if the implementation ultimately ends up effectively handing over control of private keys to the service provider), and that he likely just had a brain fart in translating the idea from his head into written language, a common phenomenon that affects pretty much everyone at some point in time. Maybe I'm just being too generous to people suffering from the human condition. We should probably start holding everyone to the standard of absolute perfection all the time - never misspeaking, never making any typos - and start reflexively discarding any and all ideas that have any kind of minor mistake in them; that sounds like a much more rational and reasonable approach.

JohnMakin 1y ago
Except Musk and the chadsphere he surrounds himself with spends an inordinate amount of time promoting him as some kind of techno-genius. A first year CS student couldn't confuse those terms, and he makes embarrassing gaffes like that quite often. They go ignored because people make unlimited amounts of excuses for him for some reason, other than the very obvious conclusion - that he doesn't know wtf he is talking about. Even your corrected, generous version is wildly inaccurate.
- anonym29 1y ago
  There hasn't ever been a single time in your entire life where you were thinking of one thing, but the words coming out of your mouth communicated something different, by mistake, even though you genuinely did understand the difference?
  - JohnMakin 1y ago
    Do you understand the post you are replying to? If you do, what does this question have to do with it?
    - anonym29 1y ago
      I do, but that post is arguing a point (Elon Musk doesn't know the difference between encryption and cryptography) that's unsubstantiated, while a plausible alternative explanation (he does know the difference, and mis-spoke, because he, like all other human beings, sometimes makes errors in translating thoughts into words) was proposed in my parent post. Your post completely sailed right past that alternative plausible explanation, and immediately went back to asserting the unsubstantiated claim without addressing the alternative hypothesis, in what appears to be a bout of motivated reasoning against a figure that is politically disliked. You don't get to completely ignore the point I'm raising, assert your own, and then play the "why aren't you staying on topic" card when your post was the one that brought up an unsubstantiated and unrelated response to the initial claim - that's hypocritical at best, if not outright trolling.
      - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
        the point is less the infallibility of human cognition and more Spider Man's Law (with great power comes great responsibility). if you're one of the most powerful people on the planet and you make public statements and decisions that will impact many people, you should be held to a higher standard of emission.
      - JohnMakin 1y ago
        > that's unsubstantiated, Other than me not making this claim at all, of course it’s substantiated, given he literally mixed up these terms people purporting that kind of expertise typically don’t. That’s literal substantiation, but whatever, I wasn’t even making that claim. If it seems like I’m skipping past your point it’s because you’re not really making one, or at least not the clever one you seem to think you are. To answer your q in good faith - yes, I have mixed up words, even in professional settings. I will then typically issue a correction, because the degree of such a mixup can cast a shadow on my credibility and can damage my career and thus earning potential. You seem to be taking the position that elon’s credibility cannot be questioned, at least on the topic of technical expertise. I find that a little bit (actually a lot) silly and an infantile way of looking at this. Likewise, if I was routinely claiming to be this like, super technical genius founder engineer elite space dude that could never admit fault and was an expert at basically all topics, I would expect to be placed under the same skeptical lens (if not much more, given I’m just a low level grunt) I would face in a scenario like this in my day to day work. Does this explanation help?
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    If you don't want extra skepticism, don't be the richest person on earth, don't insert yourself into government, don't insist you are uber-intelligent, don't be a notable person, don't be an asshole in public, etc. It literally doesn't matter whether it's a mistake, he does this too often to give him the benefit of the doubt anymore. Elon Musk reliably claims to be an expert in everything ever, despite all available evidence to the contrary. Elon has never demonstrated technical competence in anything.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    How many times do you make that excuse of "he just flubbed a word" before thinking maybe he doesn't really know what he's talking about? Once? Twice? A dozen times?
  - bigbadfeline 1y ago
    > where you were thinking of one thing, but the words coming out of your mouth communicated something different He was promoting a new feature with fanfare, in writing, it wasn't just a casual utterance. Besides, his words sound wrong even if the intended message was "Bitcoin style cryptography", it's still a preposterous non-description because bitcoin isn't, and has never been, a measure of cryptographic strength, the formal validity of that statement doesn't make it less uninformed.
jcranmer 1y ago
It is possible that he had a brain fart. But Musk makes a lot of statements, and he's repeatedly demonstrated that he is the kind of person who wants to project an image of himself that is smarter than he is. There's a trend of people discovering, when he starts speaking in the areas that he's knowledgeable, that he's just a complete idiot making n00b mistakes in their field, and if he's that bad in their area, why not others? Recent entries in this category include programming and playing Diablo, but the conversion factor for me was hearing him talk about tunneling and transit technology. And once you hear him as a fast-talking technobullshitter, it's hard not to treat any future misstatement of him as anything but fast-talking technobullshittery. But for this claim in particular, there's another element that makes me think the claim was intended to be truthy instead of true. "Bitcoin style encryption" feels like it's meant to be a riff on "military-grade encryption"--a signifier that it's "really good" encryption while being extremely vague on what it is, but using "Bitcoin" instead of "military" to make him seem cooler to the people for whom cryptocurrency references gives you extra credibility. Even if we assume it's a brain fart for "cryptosystem" or something similar... people with a basic understanding of cryptography recognize that bitcoin isn't using encryption, so a reference to Bitcoin's cryptosystem isn't directly relevant in the first place. To the extent Bitcoin itself uses a cryptosystem, it's the same cryptosystem everybody is using, so the reference itself degenerates "hey, we're using the same algorithms everybody does" which isn't something to tout. So, no, I don't think it's a brainfart. I think it's a smarter-than-thou bullshitter trying to bullshit his audience, although I'm willing to accept that he may "just" be an idiot repeating what somebody told him without properly understanding what was told to him, leading him to give a confused response.

JohnMakin 1y ago

Except Musk and the chadsphere he surrounds himself with spends an inordinate amount of time promoting him as some kind of techno-genius. A first year CS student couldn't confuse those terms, and he makes embarrassing gaffes like that quite often. They go ignored because people make unlimited amounts of excuses for him for some reason, other than the very obvious conclusion - that he doesn't know wtf he is talking about. Even your corrected, generous version is wildly inaccurate.

anonym29 1y ago
There hasn't ever been a single time in your entire life where you were thinking of one thing, but the words coming out of your mouth communicated something different, by mistake, even though you genuinely did understand the difference?
- JohnMakin 1y ago
  Do you understand the post you are replying to? If you do, what does this question have to do with it?
  - anonym29 1y ago
    I do, but that post is arguing a point (Elon Musk doesn't know the difference between encryption and cryptography) that's unsubstantiated, while a plausible alternative explanation (he does know the difference, and mis-spoke, because he, like all other human beings, sometimes makes errors in translating thoughts into words) was proposed in my parent post. Your post completely sailed right past that alternative plausible explanation, and immediately went back to asserting the unsubstantiated claim without addressing the alternative hypothesis, in what appears to be a bout of motivated reasoning against a figure that is politically disliked. You don't get to completely ignore the point I'm raising, assert your own, and then play the "why aren't you staying on topic" card when your post was the one that brought up an unsubstantiated and unrelated response to the initial claim - that's hypocritical at best, if not outright trolling.
    - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
      the point is less the infallibility of human cognition and more Spider Man's Law (with great power comes great responsibility). if you're one of the most powerful people on the planet and you make public statements and decisions that will impact many people, you should be held to a higher standard of emission.
    - JohnMakin 1y ago
      > that's unsubstantiated, Other than me not making this claim at all, of course it’s substantiated, given he literally mixed up these terms people purporting that kind of expertise typically don’t. That’s literal substantiation, but whatever, I wasn’t even making that claim. If it seems like I’m skipping past your point it’s because you’re not really making one, or at least not the clever one you seem to think you are. To answer your q in good faith - yes, I have mixed up words, even in professional settings. I will then typically issue a correction, because the degree of such a mixup can cast a shadow on my credibility and can damage my career and thus earning potential. You seem to be taking the position that elon’s credibility cannot be questioned, at least on the topic of technical expertise. I find that a little bit (actually a lot) silly and an infantile way of looking at this. Likewise, if I was routinely claiming to be this like, super technical genius founder engineer elite space dude that could never admit fault and was an expert at basically all topics, I would expect to be placed under the same skeptical lens (if not much more, given I’m just a low level grunt) I would face in a scenario like this in my day to day work. Does this explanation help?
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  If you don't want extra skepticism, don't be the richest person on earth, don't insert yourself into government, don't insist you are uber-intelligent, don't be a notable person, don't be an asshole in public, etc. It literally doesn't matter whether it's a mistake, he does this too often to give him the benefit of the doubt anymore. Elon Musk reliably claims to be an expert in everything ever, despite all available evidence to the contrary. Elon has never demonstrated technical competence in anything.
- vel0city 1y ago
  How many times do you make that excuse of "he just flubbed a word" before thinking maybe he doesn't really know what he's talking about? Once? Twice? A dozen times?
- bigbadfeline 1y ago
  > where you were thinking of one thing, but the words coming out of your mouth communicated something different He was promoting a new feature with fanfare, in writing, it wasn't just a casual utterance. Besides, his words sound wrong even if the intended message was "Bitcoin style cryptography", it's still a preposterous non-description because bitcoin isn't, and has never been, a measure of cryptographic strength, the formal validity of that statement doesn't make it less uninformed.

jcranmer 1y ago

It is possible that he had a brain fart. But Musk makes a lot of statements, and he's repeatedly demonstrated that he is the kind of person who wants to project an image of himself that is smarter than he is. There's a trend of people discovering, when he starts speaking in the areas that he's knowledgeable, that he's just a complete idiot making n00b mistakes in their field, and if he's that bad in their area, why not others? Recent entries in this category include programming and playing Diablo, but the conversion factor for me was hearing him talk about tunneling and transit technology. And once you hear him as a fast-talking technobullshitter, it's hard not to treat any future misstatement of him as anything but fast-talking technobullshittery. But for this claim in particular, there's another element that makes me think the claim was intended to be truthy instead of true. "Bitcoin style encryption" feels like it's meant to be a riff on "military-grade encryption"--a signifier that it's "really good" encryption while being extremely vague on what it is, but using "Bitcoin" instead of "military" to make him seem cooler to the people for whom cryptocurrency references gives you extra credibility. Even if we assume it's a brain fart for "cryptosystem" or something similar... people with a basic understanding of cryptography recognize that bitcoin isn't using encryption, so a reference to Bitcoin's cryptosystem isn't directly relevant in the first place. To the extent Bitcoin itself uses a cryptosystem, it's the same cryptosystem everybody is using, so the reference itself degenerates "hey, we're using the same algorithms everybody does" which isn't something to tout. So, no, I don't think it's a brainfart. I think it's a smarter-than-thou bullshitter trying to bullshit his audience, although I'm willing to accept that he may "just" be an idiot repeating what somebody told him without properly understanding what was told to him, leading him to give a confused response.